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Weekend Gateway From Hyderabad :: Srisailam Part-2

October 25, 2017
Animesh Chatterjee
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Weekend gateway from hyderabad

There was a small covering on Srisailam about two paragraphs in a leading newspaper stating that authority had opened two gates during the last two days.During our last visit we could not get the gates opened. We ended up with a dry visit!!. Please refer here for our first visit. Also during with the chitchat with my manager cum friend Sreekar from my organization yielded that it could be a better visit this time as the gates were opened. Accordingly, Friday night I had to convince my wife for this weekend trip. We packed our bag quickly and were ready for our next day visit. The cherry on the top was to have my in-laws who joined  this trip. It was a best option to see Lord Mallikarjuna.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Srisailam is a temple town deep inside Nallamalla forest on the bank of river Krishna in kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.It is 235 KM away from Hitechcity via ORR.

Next day, (14th Oct’2017), we started at 8AM. We reached HP diesel bunk for topping up diesel. at around 8:30 AM we hit the Neheru Outer Ring Road(ORR). At around 9AM we reached exit 19 and met Srisailam highway.After driving around 10 KMs , we were surprised to see the road condition. It had improved drastically over last 3 years. Clear sign of diversions, bumps and village made our driving joyful.

The road was wide , two ways with

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Newly laid tars made our journey pleasurable. On top of this there were numbers of dhabas to have food. We stopped for a Dhaba for a cup of tea before kalwakurthy. Unfortunately the dhaba was closed but tea section was opened. We took 2 cups of tea. The toilet facility was clean. We had not faced any issue so far with two elderly people . Keeping my last visit in mind, I was cruising at 60-70 KM/hr.

Just before kalwakurthy, We stopped for the major break at Food Village. We had puri and some sweet flavored milk. This hotel was having great ambiance,staff and again neat and clean toilet facility. They had ample of parking. On top this the price was real cheap. Hats off to the owner.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Our next destination was Dindi dam. At kalwakurthy junction, the road was broadened along with clear signboard towords Srisailam. There was no way a driver could make mistake now. I remembered that three years back it was so narrow I left this turning and went to wards Devkarna to Bangalore highway. Once we crossed kalwakurthy junction, the road became almost empty. The journey became a breeze in the lap of mother nature with light or no traffic .Due to Dindi’d height my in-lays refused to climb to Dindi. As we have already ventured Dindi last time. We continued our journey.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Our next stop was just before the forest check point.We had to take a Rs 20 INR ticket to

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enter into the jungle. I expected a lush green jungle just after crossing the gate. But it was not. There were lot of food stalls in the villages. The remoteness and beauty of the jungle somehow transformed to business oriented area. However after driving some KMs I could still find the hotel at the jungle safari gate. Not sure if that was run by govt anymore. Last time , we visited here , it was run by Haritha. We remembered that it was a deep jungle.We were driving back to Hyderabad. Since it was raining heavily, we did not see any other commuter for almost 1 hour. I was hungry ,thirsty for some tea and some safe shade to take some rest.Suddenly out of no where this tea stall arrived. We took fried moong dal along with tea. This time also we stopped here for cherish those memories.We enjoyed tea here , did some photoshooting of our in laws.
Weekend gateway from hyderabad
The safari facility was improved a lot with lots of nature lovers willing to go inside jungle. The guide told us beforehand that there would not be be any animal and it would be a pure jungle safari.I was amazed to see many nature lover ventured to see the jungle .
So far I remembered that last time the ambiance was not good. The guide was not in proper dress and the jeep was not in proper condition. This time the ambiance was great, the guides were in proper dress. Moreover the car was completely new.We continued our journey again.
Weekend gateway from hyderabad
Our next stop or rather a forced stop at the first view point from where people could see the man made beauty. We also stopped here saw the man made wonder. This time we realized that there were six gates opened. We thanked Lord Mallikarjuna. Once we came to the second view point, we saw the majestic view of man made rain. I had to pack my SLR. My wife took some with her mobile camera though. Entire road was scenic with lash greenery with full of flora and fauna as that was post monsoon season .
Weekend gateway from hyderabad
The Man made wonder and man made rain removed all tiredness. Going down further to the hill to cross the bridge was not easy. It was a huge gathering of nearby people who want to drench themselves in the lap of mother nature.
With lot of difficulty we crossed the bridge and went to the top hill again . it costed us 3 hours.Just before entering Srisailam , we got our old hotel which offer non veg. We stopped here for lunch for the first time.The quality of the food was improved so as the Spice.We took veg meal and resumed our journey again. Our next stop was at the Sakshi ganapati temple for a prayer. This time it was more systematic with queue of people ,traffic control police and ample of parking.
Weekend gateway from hyderabad
Sakshi Ganapati is a famous temple of Lord Ganesh situated just before Srisailam.It is said Lord Ganesh keeps records of all names of the pilgrims who come to Srisailam. He displays the list to Lord Siva for blessings. If you have an option to stop here,please park your vehicle and visit here first then proceed to Srisailam.If you are travelling in a bus or have no option to stop here,please come back here for registering your name. However you can get down from bus here , ample of autos available to travel to Srisailam.
After 20 minutes we started again for our last leg of our journey. At the gate of Srisailam we had to pay Rs 100 for Srisailam entry.Road inside andhra was also good. So within no time we reached Srisailam.

 

I completely forgot the road towards the hotel. My wife came to rescue us. After a little difficulties we got the hotrel. We got 2 A/C rooms in top floor. The view was awesome. We rested for sometimes. At evening we went for Srisailam market for some shopping.

 Lord Mallikajurna temple-Night View. The temple looked gorgeous and is a symbol of ancient sculpture.
The main gate of Lord Mallikarjuna.
The market was bigger this time.Lots of shopping options. We purchased lots of items this time. We noticed that there were lots of hotels,food centers,canteens available. Hotel Apoorva was same in taste. We ate meal and some customized food items.One more thing we noticed that time use of coconut was limited in all the hotels.
 During shopping we ate at A1 hotel. It was a great canteen in the heart of the market.Dosa was great. We tasted the aloo bhaji and tea as well.At 10PM we started our return journey to the hotel. At 10:30PM we cam back to hotel.
It was nice to see lots of people in the market at 10PM. And below was the view of the hotel at night.
Next day , we got up at 7:00AM, started preparing for Lord Mallikarjuna darshhan.The morning view was so nice from the hotel that we could not resist ourselves for few snaps.

Weekend gateway from hyderabad
We took only tea at hotel. At 8:00AM we headed towards the darshan. We parked our car just near the main gate.We left our shoes in the car itself and went barefooted.  Walking down with barefooted was never easy. I suggest to leave your shoes to the clock rooms.The view inside the temple was excellant. there was a huge statue of Nandi to start with.Photography was strictly prohibited inside of the temple. So I had to come back and drop my camera inside of the car.There was no more VIP queue anymore. There were two main queues . One was free and other one Rs 150.Seeing huge queue in paid darshan we took the free dharshan queue.Free queue for free darshan was never easy.They put us in a cage popularly known as platform without the basic facilities like tea,toilets etc. Process was simple once the previous platform was empty the next platform will proceed for darshan. Having two elderly person in team made our darshan very tough. We left the idea of Darshan this time and came back to A1 canteen for food. The food served was very nice. We roamed here and there little bit and at around 3PM we started our journey back to Hyderabad.The return journey was never easy. The news of opening gate spread all the surround areas.
Being Sunday, people came to see the beauty. It was a huge rush.Locals and police tried their level best to clear the traffic. At around 5PM we finally crossed the Srisailam and stopped for tea at Rajdhani dhaba, just outside of Srisailam. There were light traffic at jungle and we crossed it within 45 mins. We stopped for tea and some snacks at the gate of the jungle.

We stopped at famous patalganga ghat for this nice snap.

Again the road was scenic and treat to the eyes.

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Weekend gateway from hyderabad

Govt had setup a beautiful Sulabh complex toilet facility here. All were clean. It was really an excellent move by govt and local. There were lots of food stalls .We used the sulabh complex(Rate was Rs5/head) and came to know that there was a guest house too just for night stay.We took freshly fried aloo bhaji and puffed rice. Later we took freshly made tea too.Oh!! i must say this area was highly invested with monkeys So be careful with your food . We headed towards Hyderabad.
Rest of the journey was very normal. The beautiful road took us home safely at 9PM. It was indeed a joyful journey.

Summary:
Car used- ford figo
Diesel Consumed- 40 lts
Toll- Rs 115* 2
Entry fee-Rs 100
Hotel Cost-Rs 750 (A/C)/day/rom
Trip Duration-2 days
Take Away from trip:
Weekend gateway from hyderabad
  1. With improved roads lots of dhabas and hotel opened with great basic facilities.
  2. The jungle once being an empty area was full of tourists . So no where we felt that we were alone. One way good but the bad point was the silence and beauty of the jungle really were missing. Which we experienced during our bike ride.
  3. While tourists were having fun, picnic,selfies with jungle they left behind plastics,garbage and uneaten food. That was a pure eyeshore.
  4. The lush green thick forest became less dense with the advancement of human .
  5. People became more business oriented , we never ever experienced the human touch.  I remembered last time it was remote but people valued us. They offered tea,shelters,does and don’ts,route map with their very little hindi knowledge.(Google map was not that advanced last time). More and more technology got advanced , Sadly but truly we moved away from each other.
  6. While both the govt had put lots of effort to make the way better, we the careless drivers made the journey bad to worse. I remembered that some of the arrogant drivers were never following the traffic rules. They were wrong routing , tried all possible ways to go ahead of the traffic violating the drive rule in ghat. That made the on coming traffic standstill and created a chaos . I must say we never experienced this during our dapoli visit that was allmost 150 KM ghat section. I request all my blog readers to follow the traffic rules.
  7. The remoteness, emptiness of the road was completely removed. Not sure if the new bikes will enjoy the journey or not.
  8. There was online ticket available for darshan, please use that facility. Trust me that will surely save huge time for you.
  9. Being a small town , it is well connected with Auto. So you can take hotel anywhere of the town. But I suggest to take hotel near to main temple.
  10. It is always better to hire a local auto for local site visit. The reasons being they know the route condition ,shortcuts better than us.
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